Alan Carling

Exploitation, Extortion and Oppression

Exploitation, extortion and oppression describe unjust social arrangements that ought to be changed. The concept of exploitation is particularly associated with Marxs critique of capitalism, and the term ‘extortion’ sometimes designates the injustice of feudalism. The distinctions between these concepts can be clarified using the framework of rational-choice theory. Oppression is a situation of unfair exclusion (from resources, or utilities more generally). Exploitation is the unfair use by one person of the excluded situation of another. Extortion involves the deliberate creation of an exploiting situation. The relation of these phenomena to coercion is a logical one only in the case of extortion: coercion being necessary to extortion.

Analytical and Essential Marxism

Analytical Marxism involves the attempt to reconstruct Marxist theory and to refocus Marxist politics in the light of contemporary intellectual developments-especially in analytical philosophy and economic theory – and historical events-above all, the failures of Communist regimes. In order to assess this reconstruction it is necessary to bear in mind a conception of the overall Marxist project. By this standard of comparison it remains to be seen whether Analytical Marxism can effect the required kind of connection between its theory and its practice.

'Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will': a reconstructed Marxist theory for the 1990s?

Erik Olin Wright, Andrew Levine and Elliott Sober are each well known as writers on analytical Marxist topics. The publication of their jointly authored Reconstructing Marxism (London: Verso, 1992, £11.95, xii + 202 pp.) highlights their collaboration in a tripartite research project a distinctive ’Madison school’ of Marxist thought which has matured over a dozen years. The essays presented here are amended versions of papers published singly, or in pairs or triplets, over this period, together with two chapters of new material: a highly original piece on explanation, and a closing reflection on the contemporary condition of Marxist theory. Since one can often detect the joins beneath the editorial attempt to create a seamless web of theoretical development from a variety of papers, part of the interest of the book lies in the record it provides of the drift of thought over a difficult decade. Overall, the ambitions of Marxism as theory and practice are progressively whittled away, until only a minimum research programme remains

The Trouble with Multiculturalism

We focus specifically on multiculturalism in this book because for some years now, it has been the dominant approach to cultural and religious diversity around the world (Kymlicka, 1998; 2001a,b; 2007). It is thus important to clarify what the term means, why it was introduced into Western societies and how it operates in policy and practice. Since our concern is with equality and human rights, our focus is mainly at the policy and practice levels and the question of whether multiculturalism has promoted or obstructed these in relation to minority ethnic groups (for a theoretical critique, see Macey, 2009).

The Problem with Religion

This chapter focuses specifically on religion(s) within the complex of ‘race, ethnicity, culture and religion’. It describes the sociological character of religion and locates this in the context of globalisation, migration and multicultural/multi-faith societies and a growing emphasis on religion on the part of both governments and academics. This stems not only from diversity, but also from the assertion of a global resurgence of religion which is paralleled by a theoretical/ideological shift that challenges secularisation and, indeed, Enlightenment thinking and claims a place for religion in the public arena. Yet in the context of ethnic diversity, religion may create or exacerbate social tensions and is itself responsible for inequality and oppression on a number of dimensions which we explore in this chapter.

Landscapes of Religion or Belief

The premise of this book is that religion is an important topic because what goes by the name ‘religion’ is important in the lives of many people, and that religious understandings exist in their own right. They cannot be treated as derived manifestations — the ideological reflexes — of cultural or social phenomena defined at other levels.

Towards Equality of Religion or Belief

The landscape of religion is changing in Britain in ways that are reasonably clear, even if the details of the process often cry out for further investigation. There has been a continuing movement of secularisation, with declining observance in organised (mainly Christian) religions, and an accompanying shift ‘from forms of religion that are imposed or inherited to forms of religion that are primarily chosen’ (Davie, 2005: 281). Davie regards this shift ‘from obligation to consumption’ as characteristic of Northern Europe as a whole, and not just the UK. These processes have left a situation in which those who practise religion actively make up a small minority of the population — no more than 20% in Britain, even on the most generous assumptions about what counts as practice of the Christian religion. The majority of the population occupy a variety of different positions within an alternative spectrum of spiritual, agnostic and secular belief that has very little connection with any organised religion, at the levels of either (accepted) religious practice or (conventional) religious belief. Although Stark and Finke have claimed that ‘it seems time to carry the secularization doctrine to the graveyard of failed theories’, their obituary notice is premature, since secularisation is alive and well in nearly all developed countries (2000: 79, cited in Norris and Inglehart, 2007: 32).

Social Injustices of Religion or Belief

The distinction between social inequality and social injustice was introduced in the previous chapter. It was argued that religious inequalities can be addressed by a range of measures involving education, social class equality and/or gender equality that do not refer to religious identity. Religious inequality is not therefore caused solely by injustices suffered by individuals as a consequence of their religious identity. As a key government report made the point: ‘not all inequality stems from discrimination, and therefore not all inequality can be addressed by legal remedy’ (Phillips, 2007: 37). In this chapter we will, however, focus on the issue of religious injustice, and the related role of the law concerning religion/belief.

Religion and Culture Make a Difference

In this book, ‘religious inequality’ (or ‘inequality of religion or belief’) is used as a descriptive term to denote any variation in circumstances between members of groups defined by religion or belief. We focus especially on inequalities that exert major effects on the life chances of individuals. An unequal situation does not necessarily imply unequal or unfair treatment, since the latter judgement will depend on what has brought about the unequal situation. Religious inequalities may, nevertheless, point up areas of potential concern regarding injustices of religion or belief such as prejudice, hate crime or discrimination, which are covered in more detail in the next chapter. We argue in this chapter that it is necessary to achieve a balanced view of the extent and causes of religious inequality in order to provide the foundation for appropriate policy initiatives.